I agree that porting to PPC Mac is not a long-term solution and I'm also not a fan of supporting hardware which is no longer being manufactured, but the fact remains, that even if all the obstacles for an x86 port didn't exist, right now a MacPPC port would be a much better investment than going for x86.

Well, going PPC in 2002 was also not a long term solution... It took 5 years to do so... Now what ? Do we go for another not long-term solution, that will take more time than expected, won't open the OS to anyone, and finally discover we're in front of a wall ? Or just move on, *right now* ?

There are people who use C64's an classic amiga's everyday. just like your mac folk.that doesnt mean I should build a new computer platform based on 6502's or 68k's. fit for the trash bin simply means - in comparison with current HW - and you know it.

So tell me, what is it that you can't do properly on Mac PPC hardware, which is so important to most people, that you can do on current PC hardware?

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if we go PPC mac, its like we've lit a torch but we are still in the dark ages plus its dead end, we will be in the same position we are now in a short period of time...the fuel in that torch will not last long.

I agree that porting to PPC Mac is not a long-term solution and I'm also not a fan of supporting hardware which is no longer being manufactured, but the fact remains, that even if all the obstacles for an x86 port didn't exist, right now a MacPPC port would be a much better investment than going for x86.

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People want horsepower. they want it for games, they want it for creative applications, they want it for many more reasons.

No, not all people want horsepower, most people care about what they can do with the machine and how nice it is to use. But now what we're onto this "horsepower" thing, give me some examples of specifically what tasks on a modern computer require the kind of horsepower, which PPCs can't provide.

yeah not 'all' people want horsepower....but the ones that dont want horsepower are NOT going to pay big $$$ for a computer that has horsepower that looked good a decade ago.

Plus - if most people didnt want horsepower?...well....theres a loooottttt of new PC's being sold...millions....mainly all on the back of this years CPU is faster than last years.

So again, I'd have to state that the vast majority of users want horsepower. They dont want excuses on why they have to pay an arm and a leg for a computer that is slllooowwww...they want to know that their machine wont be outdated in 5 minutes.Thats a key thing customers request when buying a pc (in my experience)...

Do I seriously need to sit here and list tasks and applications that perform better with more horsepower? Im sure you can do it if you really try!

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eniacfoa

Re: ...My dear Hyperion, is now the time to go to --> x86 ???Posted on 25-Mar-2009 11:50:50

Well, going PPC in 2002 was also not a long term solution... It took 5 years to do so... Now what ? Do we go for another not long-term solution, that will take more time than expected, won't open the OS to anyone, and finally discover we're in front of a wall ? Or just move on, *right now* ?

Well the best for us would be to stay on the 600Mhz PPC for the next 10 years!Now we have a financial crisis in the world , so perhaps the mainboards willbe 30¤ cheaper! Not the mention that the possibility of gaining some new users is equal to an temperature of absolute zero!

All the best,

D.

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COBRA

Re: ...My dear Hyperion, is now the time to go to --> x86 ???Posted on 25-Mar-2009 12:05:08

yeah not 'all' people want horsepower....but the ones that dont want horsepower are NOT going to pay big $$$ for a computer that has horsepower that looked good a decade ago.

Apparently quite a lot of people have ordered Sam boards, besides Mac PPCs which I suggested would be a better investment, don't cost big $$$.

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Plus - if most people didnt want horsepower?...well....theres a loooottttt of new PC's being sold...millions....mainly all on the back of this years CPU is faster than last years

CPUs are getting faster not because people want a faster CPU every year, but because that's what drives the PC market. I don't think I need to explain to you how it works. There are a few power-crazy die-hard gamers who always want the fastest of everything as soon as it comes out, but that is not the majority, and those would not be potential users of AmigaOS anyway.

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Do I seriously need to sit here and list tasks and applications that perform better with more horsepower? Im sure you can do it if you really try!

Yes, I want to hear your opinion, I want you to tell me what it is in which you think PPC chips do not perform well enough, but x86 does. Just list a few which you think is relevant, I'm sure it won't take too much of your time.

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AmigaBlitter

Re: ...My dear Hyperion, is now the time to go to --> x86 ???Posted on 25-Mar-2009 12:07:36

_________________This weeks pet peeve:Using "voltage" instead of "potential", which leads to inventing new words like "amperage" instead of "current" (I, measured in A) or possible "charge" (amperehours, Ah or Coulomb, C). Sometimes I don't even know what people mean.

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TheDaddy

Re: ...My dear Hyperion, is now the time to go to --> x86 ???Posted on 25-Mar-2009 12:10:49

yeah not 'all' people want horsepower....but the ones that dont want horsepower are NOT going to pay big $$$ for a computer that has horsepower that looked good a decade ago.

Apparently quite a lot of people have ordered Sam boards, besides Mac PPCs which I suggested would be a better investment, don't cost big $$$.

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Plus - if most people didnt want horsepower?...well....theres a loooottttt of new PC's being sold...millions....mainly all on the back of this years CPU is faster than last years

CPUs are getting faster not because people want a faster CPU every year, but because that's what drives the PC market. I don't think I need to explain to you how it works. There are a few power-crazy die-hard gamers who always want the fastest of everything as soon as it comes out, but that is not the majority, and those would not be potential users of AmigaOS anyway.

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Do I seriously need to sit here and list tasks and applications that perform better with more horsepower? Im sure you can do it if you really try!

Yes, I want to hear your opinion, I want you to tell me what it is in which you think PPC chips do not perform well enough, but x86 does. Just list a few which you think is relevant, I'm sure it won't take too much of your time.

Define a 'lot'. I think thats a perception that they received more orders that they had planned for, but in reality how many machines were sold?...maybe you would have the same situation if there was an x86 AOS, where orders exceed the planned initial demand. I think thats likely. I stated it would generate the largest cash flow through sales Ainc/Hyperion have ever seen (if sold at a reasonable price- NOT $500) and I completely stand by that statement.

Sure, the crazy die hard gamers have the crazy overclocked water cooled machines, but that doesnt mean most people are still running 600mhz machines either.

I think PPC is too expensive. I never meant PPC cant do this or that... x86 can provide significant horsepower much cheaper and not only that, everyone already has one, which means we dont have to run out and buy expensive PPC machines to run AOS.. All we need to buy is the OS and some software, which dramatically reduces the entry costs to being an amiga user.

Do you think amiga has blown, squandered and pi ssed away enough money for this to have happened? I sure do.

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eniacfoa

Re: ...My dear Hyperion, is now the time to go to --> x86 ???Posted on 25-Mar-2009 12:37:40

There are a few power-crazy die-hard gamers who always want the fastest of everything as soon as it comes out, but that is not the majority, and those would not be potential users of AmigaOS anyway.

While I agree people don't need 8 core monster with a graphic card that sucks more power than my fridge there are some legitimate areas where "home user" would love some spare CPU juice.

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I want you to tell me what it is in which you think PPC chips do not perform well enough, but x86 does.

That would be PPC chips that OS4 runs on or any PPC chips? If any, I think I'd be happy with G5 box as home computer (we're talking home usage, not work, right?). Fastest what can you get currently is Pegasos G4. Playing HD content (you need to see "Five centimeters per second" in HD to understand why one need HD. I was sceptical before that ) is one thing. People are taking lots of pictures now. Dealing with 300 pictures you took at trip in RAW can take a while on slow computer. Webpages that uses lots of JS frameworks (and now are usbale thanks to WebKit ports) can sucks your CPU dry (yesterday I noticed that Blip.pl (clone of Twitter) makes my computer crawl and taxes CPU at 100% all the time. It was a bug and it was fixed, still). Reencoding movies, and I do that now and then, when my N800 is not able to play content "as is" is painful process. PII can reencode DVD quality MP4 movie in ratio 3 seconds of work to 1 second of output movie. My AMD64 desktop can crunch 30 minutes of same content in 4 minutes.

That would be my "why I need some spare cycles in my home computer" reasons.

Define a 'lot'. I think thats a perception that they received more orders that they had planned for, but in reality how many machines were sold?...maybe you would have the same situation if there was an x86 AOS, where orders exceed the planned initial demand. I think thats likely. I stated it would generate the largest cash flow through sales Ainc/Hyperion have ever seen (if sold at a reasonable price- NOT $500) and I completely stand by that statement.

Sure, but that's not the only way to sell a lot of copies of OS4, as I was explaining earlier, there are other ways which take much less work.

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Sure, the crazy die hard gamers have the crazy overclocked water cooled machines, but that doesnt mean most people are still running 600mhz machines either.

Nobody said most people run 600MHz machines, and remember that Mac PPCs are available up to 2+GHz Quad-core G5's.

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I never meant PPC cant do this or that...

What did you mean then, when you said that "ppc macs are almost worthy of the trash bin"? If they can handle nicely the everyday tasks people do on computers, then what makes them worthy of the trash bin?

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opi

Re: ...My dear Hyperion, is now the time to go to --> x86 ???Posted on 25-Mar-2009 12:45:12

Neither is there AmigaOS for x86. If you go back a page you'll see I was suggesting that getting OS4 ported to Mac PPCs would be a much simpler and more realistic option than going for x86.

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That would be PPC chips that OS4 runs on or any PPC chips?

Let's say we limit it to existing Mac PPC hardware, after all that's what was dubbed "worty of the rubbish bin" a few posts back :)

If a 1066MHz G4 can play 1080p HD content smoothly, then I'm sure a 1.7GHz G4 Mac, or a 2+ Ghz Dual/Quad G5 Mac would do even better, so as far as image or video decoding/encoding/processing is concerned, with an efficient OS and properly written code it should be able to handle the needs of most people, and more, don't you agree?

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SHADES

Re: ...My dear Hyperion, is now the time to go to --> x86 ???Posted on 25-Mar-2009 13:18:55

SHADES wrote:I can't agree on your cost statement as a con to port to x86. Although AROS is of an old standard, 90% of it is already ported to x86 and I'm sure some of this code could cut down development time drasticly. Certainly cost of obtaining a H/W base is going to come down drasticly allowing people to develop for x86 and help port if needed or at least create drivers.

Development costs money; that money has to be spent before a single product is sold. Where will that money come from? Don't have enough money, and it never get's finished; that's why there are so many failed ventures out there. And no, I don't think that any AROS code could be used. I don't think that the AROS source code is close to what Amiga OS 4.1 is at all.

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I don't see why people would leave the AMIGA community just over a x86 codebase. Why? it's so "available" and up to date and fast and there are plenty of embedded platforms on x86 too. Heck I just read about one for cars on TomsHardware.

I didn't say that at all.

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As for your further comment on extra users, where are they now? porting to Peg didn't make any huge advance, in fact, I doubt it made much impact at all. The expense of yet another HIGH priced, underpowered non expandable AMIGA H/W platform is also only going to keep user numbers down and people will once again be forced to look at emulation to keep their hobby OS alive. The future development of that OS is now in danger as it's no longer worth porting when the users become too few. At least on x86, just about anyone can become a user even if AOS stays a hobby OS.

I am not privy to their reasons for porting to the Peg II. Maybe the possibility of giving more developers access to a machine, combined with the fact that Peg II owners are already Amiga enthusiasts.

Hans

Development DOES cost money, so why put it in to boards/ports that no one/handfull will buy to use! Most can't afford them and can do it (a lot faster) with emulation on a PC running someone elses OS! Keep porting to expensive H/W that DOES require Mega$$to sell to a userbase that is maybe 1000 ppl is making Development harder and harder and more expensive.It makes no SENSE.

It was a statement to try and understand where you are coming from. I don't understand your thinking, I was trying to explain mine.

I would very much like to know porting to Peg II made development easier. There is no hardware other than whats out there and that can only be SMALL. imagine they applied that way of thinking to x86. Do you think that would have widened their potential user/development base???

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SHADES

Re: ...My dear Hyperion, is now the time to go to --> x86 ???Posted on 25-Mar-2009 13:21:03

- I don´t think porting to X86 will add "just a few more" users. I think THOUSANDS will jump in, for the same reasons as us (or have you forgotten why do you like Amiga?): Quicker and responsive OS and also easier to use.

How many people use AROS right now? How different would it be if Amiga OS 4.x were ported minus backward compatibility so that it had zero apps? Adding backward compatibility (which includes a PowerpC emulator, etc.) would take even more time and resources, which adds to the cost of reaching those users.

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- The work needed for the change is not that impossible. It could be even some kind of agreement to use AROS as base, so starting from that it could be much easier improved, but even if it was done from scratch, it can be done.

I never said that it was impossible, and no, using the AROS code is not a good idea; not if you want Amiga OS 4.x anyway.

Hans

When I suggested using AROS code, it was to help in development of the port to x86, not to clone it. I'm sure SOME of it is helpful, drivers or whatever. Seeing as though the old 3.x sources were used in 4.x development as a base, and also for AROS, it has got to help improve porting times and it is freely available.